Review: Project X

I have a pretty hard and steady rule for movie reviews I write: I don't like to talk about myself. It doesn't matter what I have to say about Project X though, because there's an audience for this film, and that audience is certainly not critics. This film is a teenager's wet dream. It's got raging hormones, beer, drugs, naked women, adults to revolt against, and of course naked women. What's there not to like? Well depending on your age, there's either plenty to like, or plenty to hate. I didn't think I was an "uncool" old guy until I saw this movie, it's kind of disheartening to think I was putting myself in the adults' shoes and all I wanted was for those damn kids to get off my lawn.

It's Thomas Kub's (Thomas Mann) birthday, and he's kind of a shy kid. Not all that unpopular, but not one of these kids who's making high school the time of his life. Not like his friend Costa (Oliver Cooper), who's that kid that we all knew in high school who could always talk us into trouble. He's slick, knows everyone, and you should never listen to him ever. So when it comes time to plan Thomas's birthday, guess what happens? They embark on a mission, and that mission is to thrown an epic party and if possible, get laid.

Project X is filled with problems. Most of those center around the fact that there really isn't a story here. There are semblances of a story at times with Thomas's best friend Kirby, a very hot blonde that he for some reason has never thought to try to date. The opening of the film goes through very basic screenwriting steps in foreshadowing where the dad makes sure to mention things like his car being off-limits. Try and guess if anything happens to his car. There's a really strange moment captured by the camera where it sees Thomas's parents discuss leaving him alone, and his dad says a really strange thing to reassure her, it just seemed unnecessary but did make it easy to predict his dad's reaction the impending disaster that is this party.

I'll give Project X some credit for knowing that even if it tried, its story would be weak so it focused on the party and the party only, and it certainly is a ri-god-damn-diculously raucous party. One of the main problems with found-footage films is actually addressed pretty cleverly here also. Found footage always has had a bit of a handicap in that the perspective always comes from one camera in a characters hands. Chronicle, earlier this year, found a great way of getting around that issue, and Project X makes it so the different perspectives are never a source for logistical questioning.

As stated earlier, my thoughts don't matter with Project X, the audience for this film will seek it out, R rating be damned. If you do want to see a great high-school party movie, I feel this a good time to say that it can be done with both an epic party and a great story. The best example of this is obviously Can't Hardly Wait, a film I can sit down and watch and still at the ripe old age of 30 enjoy very much.